“Baby sister?”
“Yeah, she’s like five or something. His stepdad passed away, so he took them in.”
“Oh man, that sucks.”
“Yeah, apparently his stepdad was abusive, so Dart is glad he’s gone,” he says with a shrug. “Angie is just glad he’s got his own place and she has more room for her plants. My house is a jungle now.”
I grin widely. “You love it.”
“I do. She misses you, and she loves you,” he reminds me, and I feel the same. “But not as much as me. I love you the most.”
I laugh. “I know, Owen.”
“Like, more than Mom and Dad, too.”
I laugh harder, shaking my head. “I know.” He leans into me, and I rest my head on his.
“When do you have to leave?”
When I lift my head from his, he leans back in the chair, clearing his throat. “Tomorrow afternoon. I’m actually going to use Mom’s plane and take Nico, Aviva, and baby Vance back with me.”
I bring in my brows. “Why are they in town?”
“Aviva’s sister is a gymnast at Bellevue. She has a meet.”
Still confused, I ask, “I didn’t know that. Who is it?”
“Calliope? I think. I can’t remember. I met her once in passing, and then Nico told me to erase her from my memory and move away or die, or something like that.”
I chuckle. Sounds like Nico. “So, you can remember a name like Calliope but not how many girls you’ve slept with?”
He grins. “I wasn’t threatened with death, castration, or an endless number of pucks to my cock if I messed with them. If I messed with Calliope, though, all that and more was coming from Nico.”
He isn’t wrong. I remember how overprotective Nico was. I didn’t pay it any mind, though, because I never really saw the girl. I have no clue who Owen is talking about, and I can’t place a Calliope in the Bullies’ lineup. I go through the lineup twice in my head. “I don’t know a Calliope. Are you sure she does gymnastics?”
“Yeah, there are tons of pictures of her in a leotard in their house.”
Why don’t I remember that? “What’s her last name?”
“Merryweather, I assume? I think he adopted her. Aviva’s and her dad is a drunk or something.”
“Huh. I don’t know any Calliope Merryweather, and if I did, I would definitely remember that name.”
“I figured you would. I don’t know. I actually forgot she existed until he said he was coming here for her meet tomorrow.”
“That’s so weird,” I say, trying really hard to place her. “Everyone knows I played for the IceCats. Wouldn’t she—”
Wait. It couldn’t be Callie, could it?
Owen looks at me funny. “What?”
“Callie?”
He thinks that over. “I feel like I’ve heard her called that, but Aviva always calls her Calliope around me.”
Surely not. Surely I didn’t sleep with Nico Merryweather’s wife’s sister.
But…her dad is a drunk, and Nico adopted her.
Dad-guy.
She works in an autism center and wants to work with kids with autism.
Nico has autism.
“Oh, fuck me,” I mutter, and Owen’s face scrunches up.
“What?”
“I think I slept with Calliope.”
Owen just gawks at me. “No fucking way.”
But as he laughs, hard, I ignore him because the doorbell rings. We both look toward it, baffled. It’s almost nine. Why would anyone be coming over?
Mom comes out in her robe and looks at us. “Oh, don’t worry. Your elderly mother will get it.”
Owen snorts. “We say that, and we get decked in the throats.”